Man makes son wear sign as punishment

Bob Gardinie, Times Union

By Bob Gardinier

Updated 6:41 am, Thursday, October 3, 2013

Rodney Green Jr., 17, of Speigletown, a senior at Lansingburgh High School, started wearing this placard as punishment for misbehaving. His father insisted that he wear the sign in busy areas. (Bob Gardinier / Times Union)

17-year-old Rodney Green of Speigletown stands on the corner of Hoosick Street and 10th Wednesday Oct. 2, 2013 wearing a sign which was punishment for his involvement in the theft of a cell phone and he was caught smoking pot. (Skip Dickstein / Times Union)

17-year-old Rodney Green of Speigletown stands on the corner of...

17-year-old Rodney Green of Speigletown stands on the corner of Hoosick Street and 10th Wednesday Oct. 2, 2013 wearing a sign which was punishment for his involvement in the theft of a cell phone and he was caught smoking pot. (Skip Dickstein / Times Union)

17-year-old Rodney Green of Speigletown stands on the corner of...

17-year-old Rodney Green of Speigletown stands on the corner of Hoosick Street and 10th Wednesday Oct. 2, 2013 wearing a sign which was punishment for his involvement in the theft of a cell phone and he was caught smoking pot. (Skip Dickstein / Times Union)

17-year-old Rodney Green of Speigletown stands on the corner of...

Rodney Green Jr., 17, of Speigletown, a senior at Lansingburgh High School, started wearing this placard as punishment for misbehaving. His father insisted that he wear the sign in busy areas. (Bob Gardinier / Times Union)

Rodney Green Jr., 17, got in trouble at school. He was suspended for a week. But the father thought his son's bad behavior should come with more serious consequences than time off from school.

Early Monday, the senior Green, a self-employed welder, told his son to get into their green Subaru.

"I did not know where he was taking me. Then we stop and he tells me to stand on this corner and hands me this sign," the teen, a senior at Lansingburgh High School said Wednesday.

Written on the sign: "I like to smoke pot, disrespect my parents, teachers and school officials. I'm a senior in high school and got suspended for being involved in a theft. I'm embarrassing my family but for the most part hurting myself."

The father told his son the sign was his to wear.

"He was sure shocked when I said 'Here, put this on," said the senior Green, sitting nearby in the car watching his son and reading a newspaper. "I was shocked myself when he agreed to do it."

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the teen spent several hours standing on a busy city intersection as carloads of people drove by and read the sign. On Wednesday, he spoke in a voice that was barely audible over the drone of passing vehicles.

The father has mostly gotten support from passers-by. Some said they though it a bit drastic, but at age 17 the son is considered an adult under the law and could have refused his father's order.

"I thought, 'Oh, well, I might as well do it and get it over with,'" the teenager said. "Being out here does not bother me. He is trying to teach me a lesson, I guess."

The father said he is worried that his son is headed in a wrong direction and being led by a bad crowd of acquaintances.

"Parenting is hard, but I'm not doing this for anyone but him," he said. "I want him to remember this and maybe it will make a difference in his future."

Though rare, it is not the first case of a wrongdoer getting publicly pilloried in the Capital Region.

In September 2009, angered after a 21-year-old set fire to their flag on a pole in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1938 in Valley Falls, post members went on a mission to find the culprit.

They brought the man, who was never publicly identified, to the post and gave him three choices: Be turned over to the police, go one-on-one in a fight with a war veteran or be duct-taped to a flagpole for six hours with a sign around his neck identifying his alleged crime.